GODDESS OF THE MOON (A Diana Racine Psychic Suspense) (26 page)

When Dreams Become Reality

T
hat morning, w
hen Lucier arrived at the
station
, Beecher was waiting at the back entrance. “We’ve got a situation
.”

“What kind of situation?”

“
T
wo guys say they broke into Silas Compton’s
house
to steal his paintings and were attacked by a group of monsters.”

“Are they high on meth, coke? Drunk?”

“Nope, just scared shitless.”

“How in hell did they get into that compound? It’s guarded like the White House.”

“That’s the interesting part. They said one of Compton’s daughters, Maia
, drove them in while they hid in the back of her car
. She told them which paintings to steal.
Said she had a buyer.”

Lucier shook his head. “Impossible. I’ve met Compton’s daughters. Neither one would
defy
her father. In fact, I doubt anyone
d
oes.”

Beecher tucked
his persistently
unruly
shirt into his pants.
“Just telling you what they said
.
”

Confused,
Lucier headed toward his office. He made a mental inventory of the case
file
and added the
two cryptic notes targeting Diana, who
wa
s sure everything tied together into one evil package because of a bad dream. He wanted to add Edward Slater and the Sunrise Mission into the mix, but he wasn’t sure the green-eyed monster didn’t have something to do with that.

In crime fiction, the cynical hero cop always says he doesn’t believe in coincidences. Lucier did. Coincidences happen, but in this case they stretched credulity. Everything
seemed to
connect
,
only he didn’t know how.

Yet.

“So allegedly, Maia Compton
drove
them
in
,” he
said
.
“
Did she drive them out too
?”

“
Here
’s where it gets a little fuzzy.
The
y
vaulted
the fence
and
sprinted
to
a car they’d parked somewhere on the street,
put the metal to the pedal
,
and took off
.”

“Where was the guard?”

“Apparently, he didn’t notice them until they were over the fence. He’s more concerned with people going in, not going out.”

“So who brought them in?” Lucier asked.

“
A p
atrol car
caught
them
tearing
down Canal Street
toward Convention Center Boulevard
like they had a jet engine under the hood. When they started ranting about Compton, the officer brought ’
em
here.”

“Where are they?”

“Interrogation.
They’re so psyched both are going to need tranquilizers. I can’t understand what they’re trying to tell us, but
their story
sounds like they’ve seen aliens from outer space.”

“Shit
.
I’ve had enough of Silas Compton, his wife, and Brother Osiris to last me till I’m on Depends.”

Lucier peeked through the one-way glass of the interrogation room.

“The older one’s Johnny Meade,” Beecher said. “He’s got a few marks, mostly mischief,
a
couple of drunk charges.
Nothing serious.
The
jitterbugger
is Antony Hall. He’s clean.”

Meade hunched motionless over the table, his head buried under a tangle of
long, stringy hair
and
arms, one
of which was
decorated with a barbed-wire bracelet tattoo. Hall, a smorgasbord of Louisiana ethnicities, fidgeted in his chair, every part of his scrawny body in motion―tapping or rocking or jerking. Both men snapped to attention when Lucier and Beecher entered.

Meade catapulted off his chair. “You’ve got to protect us,” he said. “The
re ar
e freaking monsters in that house. They came after us.”

Hall jumped at Lucier at the same time, grabbing his shirt and pulling him close. “Yeah, brother, put us in protective custody, witness protection, or something. I
ain’t
going out there again.”

Lucier wanted to
assure
them that breaking into Compton’s house guarantee
d
they wouldn’t be leaving anytime soon. “Okay, calm down. Tell me what happened.”

Both started talking at once.

“Hold on. Meade, you go first.
” He pointed Hall to his seat.
“
You’ll have your chance after.” Hall opened his mouth, but one look at Lucier and
he
clamped it
shut.

“I met Compton’s daughter in a bar. She―”

“Which daughter?”
Lucier interrupted.

“Maia. She came on to me like I was Brad Pitt or someone. The―”

“What bar?” Beecher asked.

“Juno’s in the Quarter. A lot of hot women go there after work.”

Beecher snickered.

Lucier took a seat on the other side of the table.
“Was she alone or did she come in with someone.”

“She always came in alone, ordered that pink drink. What’s the name of it?”

“Cosmopolitan?”

“Yeah, that’s it.”

“Okay, go on.”

“This woman is blonde, beautiful, and built. I didn’t know who she was, I swear. She never told me her last name until lat
er. Shit, I didn’t care. When a broad
like that hits on you, you don’t ask questions. You go with the flow, know what I mean?”

“You mean like how come a gorgeous babe would hit on a skank like you?” Beecher said.

Meade jerked his head back and stuck out his chin. “Hey, I don’t need the insults. A lot of women come on to me. I got sex appeal.”

Beecher snorted, glanced sideways at Lucier.

If this concerned anyone other than Compton, Lucier might have found the humor. But it did, and he didn’t. “She came on to you and then what
happened
?”

“We got to talking. I couldn’t get my eyes off her…you know. She kept pushing those babies in my face like I was supposed to do something with them. I wanted to, you know.” Meade looked at both cops as if he expect
ed
agreement. “Anyways, we met a few times at the same bar, and one day she brought up her father’s art collection. She said she hated her old man―something to do with her mother―and this was the best way to get at him because he loved
his
paintings
more than his kids. It was worth a fortune and she knew someone who’d pay a lot of money for whatever she could get her hands on.
Oh, Jesus.”

Meade ran his fingers through his
greasy
hair while he kept his eyes steady on Lucier. Sweat trickled down his sideburns to his neck and onto his tee shirt, already ringed with dark
underarm
stains. “Look, before
we
say anything more, if
we
tell you what we saw, you
’ll
give us a deal
, right
?
I mean, we didn’t do
nothing
. You can’t put people in jail for
thinking
about doing a crime, can you?”

Hall bobbed his head in agreement, muttering something under his breath.

The two didn’t have half a brain between them, Lucier thought. “Depends on what you tell us, and if Ms. Compton backs up your story.”
But w
hy would Maia Compton admit to robbing her father? Two facts bolstered their story. First, the two jerkoffs couldn’t have passed through the gate without help. And second, why would anyone admit to attempted robbery unless they were telling the truth? Logic told Lucier that Maia Compton did what they said
, b
ut why? The security tapes might shed light on the answer. If he could get his hands on them―which he seriously doubted.

“Start from the beginning,” Lucier said.

Hall pushed Meade aside. “The woman, Maia, said no
one’d
be home. We got inside, and while Johnny
checked out
the paintings, I thought I heard music coming from the basement. Not music, really, but like the music I heard in church when I used to go, but different.”

“Different how?”
Beecher asked.

“Like, I don’t know, like chanting
kinda
, but not the same thing.”

Lucier and Beecher exchanged glances. “What happened then?”

“I opened the door and went down the stairs. It was dark except for red lights
,
like a brothel.” He caught himself.
“N-n-not that I’ve ever been in one.
”
He rubbed the sweat off his forehead.
“
W
hen my eyes adjusted, it looked like fucking Halloween down there. People with masks like monsters
. T
hey were in a circle
around s
omething in the middle
.
I couldn’t see what. Shit, I didn’t want to see; I just wanted to
get the hell out of there
. I started to creep back up the stairs when one of ’
em
saw me. He pointed and everything stopped. I spooked and
leaped
the stairs
three at a time
, yelling to Johnny to let’s get the fuck out of there.”

All during Hall’s version, Johnny Meade sputtered and stuttered, waiting his turn. “I thought he was kidding. Then one of the monsters
burst through the door
after Tony. I
didn’t wait another second. I
shot out of there like a cannon
and
even passed Tony.”

“Y
ea
h
, al
most push
ing
me to the ground.”

“
C
alm down,” Beecher said. “We got time.”

“Did anyone sa
y anything? Yell at you to stop
?”

Both men ranted at the same time. Words ran over words into a cacophony of confusion. Lucier couldn’t keep track.

“Yeah
the guard
yelled something like stop or I’ll shoot,” Johnny said
, “b
ut I don’t think he had a gun.
Anyways, I wasn’t about to turn around to find out.
We just ran the hell down the street.
”

Then both said different versions of
“
I’ve never been so fucking scared in my whole life.
”

“Okay.” Lucier stepped in between them, hands raised in a cease-fire.
“One at a time.
How many people would you say were there?”

“I don’t know,” Hall said.
“A dozen, maybe.
It was too dark
, and
I wasn’t about to count heads.”

“Where was Maia
during
this?”

Sweat dripped off Meade’s nose and on to his soaked T-shirt
.
Both men reeked, and Lucier thought he would retch from the smell.

“I don’t know
.
One minute she was standing right beside me, but when Tony came running
and
yell
ed
about
monsters, she disappeared. I wasn’t
gonna
hang around to see where she was neither.”

“Me either. I was too busy running for my life,” Hall said. “The guard
in the gatehouse was facing the street and
didn’t see us until we
’d climbed over
. He tried to stop us, but
we were gone.”

“I’d never run so fast in my life
,” Meade said.
“You can’t let them get us
.
Them
people in there are crazy.”

Lucier would have thought the
ir
story fantasy, except for the red lights and the chanting. The image eerily mirrored Diana’s dream. He
’d filled
Beecher
in on
the
dream and caught him
nodding as he recognized the same scenario.